Four years ago, on this very day, I came to Bangalore. And things have been really good here. I’m happy with the way my life – professional and personal – has turned out in the last four years.

But lets go back to the day I came to Bangalore. I was all prepared to say goodbye to my home as it was the first time I was going away for so long. Nobody knew how long but I had an intuition that it wouldn’t be a short trip. But there was something else in store for me. When I woke up that day, I felt that my face was a little too stiff and it hurt when I touched it but it was ignored because there were more important things to do.

I boarded my flight in the afternoon and when I saw myself later in the wash room mirror of the plane, I realized that most part of my nose and nearby parts of my right cheek had hardened and turned red. As my flight kept flying, landing and taking off (It was a Lucknow-Delhi-Hyderabad-Bangalore flight) and time kept on passing, it kept getting worse. Finally, after arriving in Bangalore in the evening, it had turned into a big blister.

My sister and bro-in-law were at the airport to receive me. They took me to see the doctor as soon as we got home. It tuned out to have been caused by a Blister beetle. It might have attacked me while I packed my stuff the night before. I didn’t go out of the house much in the next few days because I didn’t want all the people to see me for the first time with a huge pussy blister on my face. Ah! it was terrible but it does make for a great story!

Alright, so after writing many posts about how I don’t read book, I finally got inspired by these posts and decided to pick up not one but two books. The first book I chose was “To Kill A Mockingbird” which was easy to find but the second book, “The Picture Of Dorian Gray” wasn’t to be found in any of the 5-6 bookstores I visited. I was hopeful that I would find it in Gangarams, the  only bookstore I couldn’t visit bacause its closed on Sundays. So last Saturday evening, I decided to go look for the book there.

Unfortunately, the rain gods weren’t too happy with my plans. And as has happened on countless other occasions, it started drizzling as soon as I got out of my apartment. By the time I reached MG Road, the rain got worse and in the 2 minutes that it took me to find a parking space and get to a safe place which could shade me from the rain, I was completely drenched. I spent the next 15 minutes inside an ATM waiting for the rain to let up but when it showed no sign of weakening, I decided to do something drastic. Now, I am generally really cranky in such situations but I felt like a really fun guy for the rest of the evening. Since I was already totally wet and dripping, I got out of the ATM and started walking towards the bookstore in the rain. I was walking swiftly but slowed down from time to time to look at the people who were standing at the entrance of shops to save themselves from the rain and give them the look – “Hey sissies! Look at me! I’m not afraid of the rain!”. Yeah, I can be a real jerk at times! Although, some people did look at me with a hint of admiration in their eyes. Or so I imagined.

Anyways, I soon spotted a Bombay Dyeing showroom and an idea popped into my mind. I went in, with a trail of water following me, and asked for a towel. Now whats interesting is that the shopkeeper and I spent the new few minutes figuring out which size and color was right for me even though there was a huge puddle of water that had dripped from my clothes around me. I decided upon a dark blue, medium sized towel and bought it. When he tried to put the towel in a bag, I asked him if I could use the towel instead. He smiled and said yes. And then I happily dried my head, face and arms (all the parts accessible without taking off my clothes) and then I put it in the bag and proceeded to the bookstore. I quickly got the book I wanted but spent the next 20 minutes or so to look for a book I could gift a friend. My clothes were still wet and stuck to me. When I came out of the store, it was still raining but it wasn’t as bad. The temperature had dropped by a couple of degrees though and wearing wet clothes didn’t help much. So I thought of going to the nearby Barista on Church Street. As I was walking towards it, a girl who was walking behind me on the sidewalk took to the road instead and suddenly started tip-toeing. In the middle of the road!!?? (I wonder if the new Shoppers’ Stop ad inspired her to do so) I couldn’t help but smile. Some other people were also looking at her but she didn’t seem to care. And then she stopped and started walking normally again.

I was still trying to make sense of what had just happened when there was a huge blast-like sound and bright lights emerged on my right. I turned back a little and it was the the electrical meter of a building that was giving out huge sparks. I tried to keep walking but others came running towards me and one guy kept his hand on my shoulder(??) for support, I guess. He was still looking at the meter and after a second or so, he went back where he came from cos the sparks had stopped. He never even cared to look at the guy he had been holding for support. I was laughing and then I saw that the tip-toe girl had also stopped because of the whole ruckus and she was also smiling.

I started walking again. It was still raining and I was still wet. Only now, I felt like I was in a Seinfeld episode. The rest of the evening was uneventful. I spent a total of three and a half in my wet clothes before I finally reached home and got out of them. Phew!

I present here some pictures and though the pictures in this post are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves, I’ll give some background on these.

The first picture is of a shop on Whitefield Road that I pass everyday on my way to work and back. It was first noticed by a friend who shared it with me and its been the reason for many laughs for the two of us since then. But I felt something like this should be shared with the whole world so here it is in all its glory:

Notice how there’s no space between U and S which makes me believe that the apostrophe was just an afterthought. Now you know where not to go for all your refractory needs!

The second picture was taken by me just before the sunset last Monday from the terrace of my new apartment. Everything was just perfect and I was lucky enough to capture the sunlight piercing through the clouds:

The picture made one of my friends a little envious cos he’d been trying to get such a shot for some time now. I think its beautiful! The sunset can be seen here.

After living in my (now) old studio apartment for a little over 3 years, I finally moved into to a much bigger apartment in a new neighborhood.
What makes this move even bigger is the fact that I don’t live alone anymore. I share the new apartment with a colleague/friend. The new apartment is bigger, better, closer to work and the new neighborhood is one of the very few proper suburbs in Bangalore complete with wide, mostly traffic-free, tree lined avenues. The move made sense and I am happy I did it but I miss my old place. It even had a connection with this blog. I started regular blogging with this post about the loneliness I sometimes felt living there and the place made an appearance in the blog from time to time sometimes even with pictures. My old area of Benson Town – Nandidurg Road would also be missed by me. It too made a few appearances on the blog here and here.

What this move also means is that I don’t take the shuttle to work anymore. Though I won’t miss the venom-spewing buses, I will miss all my friends on the shuttle, some of who always listened to my long stories and rants about the smallest of things early in the morning! I will also miss some unusual and funny characters on the shuttle including ‘Loudy & The Kingfisher’, Jesus Man, Laptop Killer, The Twins and Toad (nicknames courtesy me and a friend).

I accepted this move as a challenge. I have never lived in a hostel or with roommates and I felt that this was the last opportunity for such an experience. So I’ve made the move and things have been good so far. I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be a mistake. Wish me luck!

It’s been close to two weeks since I returned back home and things have been mostly okay. I didn’t blog partly because I was busy and partly because I just didn’t feel like.

• On my first day to work after coming back, my cell phone’s alarm stuck to following the German time zone (even though I had changed the time zone) and went off at 9:00 am which meant I had to go through a harrowing experience of getting from the centre of the city to Whitefield during the peak traffic hour.
• Last Sunday, Sonia Gandhi decided to visit Bangalore and since her rally took place near my home, the traffic situation was horrible. No, not everyday-Bangalore horrible, this was at a totally new level. I’ve never really liked her but now, I hate her. It now seems like Congress might be fined for all the posters they put up all over the city. But don’t we all know that its not really going to happen.
• It’s good to be back home and watch Indian television after a month. I missed it. Last Sunday. I turned on the TV and saw the headline “Salman ke ghar Ganesh” (Ganesh in Salman’s home) and it felt so familiar and good.